


nicotine hit (adrenaline kick)

by speakmefair



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Episode: s03e01 The Empty Hearse, Gen, POV Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-03
Updated: 2014-01-03
Packaged: 2018-01-07 05:46:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1116241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/speakmefair/pseuds/speakmefair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Greg Lestrade would have happily settled for a quiet smoke.  Life doesn't like him that much.</p>
            </blockquote>





	nicotine hit (adrenaline kick)

When he gets the summons to go to the underground section of the Met's woefully under-lit parking facilities, Greg Lestrade actually hopes, for one fleeting second of ridiculous impossibility, that it's something from Mycroft Holmes, that he's going to be involved again in some way, that his life is going to be wonderfully and miraculously brightened by _something interesting_.

Interesting, that is, for a given value of 'Christ on a crutch with his knob out, not the fucking fan club again,' because he's not an American detective and so he doesn't have the right to carry a gun and _shoot idiots_.

Shame, really.

So of course when he does get down there, it's not _even_ the bloody fan club, it's definitely nothing to do with any sort of Holmes, and it is, in fact, sweet fuck-all and a waste of time, so he does what any reasonable man would do, and decides to have a fag before going back up the Route Of A Thousand Stairs, and yeah, that's counter-intuitive, if you like, and he really could not care less.

Lestrade is out of all fucks to possibly be given ever in the history of ever, and that includes any regard to sense, thank you very much. 

He's feeling old, and getting older, and he's tired, and he's bored, and there's nothing to bloody _do_ any more, not even on the job and in the middle of a case, so he can damn well have a smoke if he feels like it, and the nicotine patches can go stick to themselves in the Drawer Of Lost Things at the bottom of his desk, and maybe have a rampant affair with some paperclips, while they're at it.

It's more a fog of ennui than anything else, so when he hears that familiar and very dead voice telling him that his nice hit of nicotine is going to kill him, it takes him a second to realise it's not some voice of Christmas Future, or something equally disgusting, come to show him his putative grave.

It really is Sherlock, and he really is that goddamn irritating, and he really is alive.

And Greg's out of all fucks to be given, and that includes about convention, because this is _Sherlock_ , who wouldn't recognise a manly back-pat if it suddenly bit him halfway through, so he doesn't do the brusque thing, or the expected thing, or anything at all, really, except hold on until he feels Sherlock realise that yeah, yeah, _exactly_ , he's _back_ , and it's fucking amazing, and that – yeah, that, it matters.

Even if it only matters to him, it's something, and it's real, and it matters.

So he holds on, and he holds on, until he knows Sherlock got the fucking _point_ , until he can feel Sherlock's whole stiff body bend into a smile, he holds on.

He holds on until the stupid bastard realises that he can forget about his visibly sore face and stiff neck and Mycroft Holmes-induced pride-stick up his arse, and just see. 

Not deduce, not guess, not come to some sudden illuminating moment of truth, just _see_ , see this one true thing that doesn't need explaining.

Just see that Lestrade is so fucking glad to have him home.


End file.
